


last action hero

by bluewalk



Series: 30_onepiece: Sanji [9]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewalk/pseuds/bluewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[#17 monster] <em>"I just saved your life."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	last action hero

It had dropped on them from the trees, nimble and silent despite its hulking mass, no warning but for a ghost of a shadow in the shade.

The venom is definitely running its course. His vision is swimming in and out of focus and his chest throbs painfully, the skin around his wound searing hot. The humidity is oppressive, the air almost too heavy to swallow and barely enough oxygen content to make it worth the effort. There is a burn on his pant leg from where his cigarette had fallen from between his lips, and he’s bleeding too, can see vivid red splashed all over the undergrowth. He feels too weak to move, the bark of the tree rough against his cheek.

But even now, Sanji can hear Zoro growling low in his throat, a threat and the promise of danger, and he can see the shimmering aura of menace and rage emanating from Zoro’s form, his posture tight with exertion.

“Dumbass,” he rasps, feeling the world spin as his heart hammers. “Zoro. Get back, you idiot.”

Zoro predictably ignores him, Wadou clenched between his teeth, Shusui in hand. Kitetsu had already lodged itself solidly in the side of the massive arachnid skittering back to finish them off, its giant, segmented body bristling with coarse black hair, its eight legs grotesquely long with claws as thin and sharp as knives. Its movements are macabre and jerky, angry and very determined.

Sanji closes his eyes against the sight, feels himself shiver and go cold all over, discovers that breathing is impossibly more difficult. He tries to stand, but his limbs are useless and he can barely lift his head. When he forces his eyes open again, he is vaguely thankful that his vocal chords don’t seem to be working either, or else he would have screamed, long and loud.

The spider is almost upon them, crashing through the undergrowth, its cavernous maw gaping. It’s just yards away from Zoro, who is standing between them with katana brandished. Sanji can see a deep cut on Zoro’s forearm, knows it matches the gash across his own collarbone, where the spider had nicked him with fangs the length of his entire arm.

“ _Zoro_ ,” he manages to gasp, and Zoro only spares him a quick glance before turning his attention back to his rapidly approaching target.

“Stay put, cook,” Zoro hisses, and Sanji makes a last-ditch attempt to stand again, out of spite if nothing else, but is rewarded only with spasms in his legs and twitching in his fingers.

It all happens too fast for his venom-addled brain to process, but when he blinks again, the spider is no longer there. An enormous chunk of something black and unsettlingly organic suddenly lands next to him with a muffled _thud_ , and streaks of something green and rancid-smelling have splattered everywhere, on the trees, on himself, and he feels it warm on his face. Something thin and spindly, longer than double his height, dangles from the vines above his head. His mouth opens and closes silently, and his breath stutters to a halt.

Zoro has retrieved Kitetsu from where it had embedded itself in a tree trunk, and he walks over with stumbling, uneven footsteps. “Hey, cook,” he says, words slurring together. “Don’t die yet.”

Sanji can only stare, pupils dilating and constricting rapidly, unable to speak around the horror ballooning inside him. Zoro collapses next to him, their shoulders slamming together, and the impact jolts air back into his protesting lungs.

“I mean it, asshole,” Zoro is saying, though his voice is sounding more and more distant. “I didn’t butcher that thing to save your sorry ass just to have you die on me.”

He feels his stomach heave at Zoro’s words and barely has enough time to turn to the side before he starts to vomit, acid burning its way up his esophagus. He glimpses again the black bristly thing that had landed so close to him, can see that it has _eyes_ , can see other bits and pieces of chopped-up spider littered across the jungle floor, and his stomach turns again, relentlessly. He is absently aware of a heavy hand on his back, but he can’t help the tremors that shake him.

“Chopper, here, soon,” Zoro is mumbling, and Sanji can barely hear him over his own gagging coughs. “Soon. Any time. Just wait.”

Covered in blood and spider guts, venom coursing through their veins, fatal fatigue insidiously creeping up on them, but Zoro insists, “Soon.”

“Ah,” Sanji pants between dry heaves, the burn in his chest exacerbated by the acid tang of bile in his throat. He licks his cracked lips and there is an explosion of something strong and bitter and _pungent_ on his tongue. He brings a shaking hand up to wipe at his mouth and it comes away green and sticky. He retches again, violently, and Zoro’s hand thumps his back.

“S’fine. Scary spider gone.”

“Fuck you.” He means that sincerely. “Suit ruined, thanks a lot. And venom,” he hiccups, nausea churning inside him, dizziness making him sway. He can feel the stuff crusting on his eyelashes, in his hair, tries valiantly to ignore it.

“I know,” Zoro says. “But Chopper.”

“Tired,” he mumbles, so impossibly tired, allows his eyelids to slide closed so that he doesn’t have to _see_ anymore. He feels like he has no bones, feels hot and cold and breathless and sleepy, adrenaline draining.

“Me too,” Zoro says, and thumps his back hard enough to force his eyes open again. “But _Chopper_.”

“But Chopper,” he repeats wearily. “Chopper, Chopper, Chopper.”

“Soon,” promises Zoro. “Stay awake. Don’t die. Just a little poison.”

“Can handle a little poison.”

“’Course. Stay ‘wake.”

“Fine. You too.”

“No. Gonna nap.”

“Don’t, asshole.”

“I just saved your life.”

“Asshole.”

“Fuck you. Bet I can stay conscious. Longer than you.”

“You’re on, marimo.”

“Fine. Starting nnnnnn—”

“… Ah, shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 24 August 2011

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Chinese translation on "last action hero"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/400320) by [renata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renata/pseuds/renata)




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